"In, quick," he snapped.
I got in, and the soldier driver still had the sedan in second gear when we got to our ship. One motor was already coughing, and as we clambered into the cabin the starter caught the second. Both propellers vanished into a silvered arc, and without a preparatory warmup we slewed around and slammed back in the bucket seats in a pounding takeoff. Stein went forward to the pilot's cabin, and I turned, half-angrily, to the Smith. His face was etched with bitterness. Something was wrong, something seriously wrong.
"What's up?" I asked. "What's the big hurry?"
He flicked a sidelong glance at me, and his brows almost met. He looked mad, raving mad.
"Well?" I said. "Cat got your tongue?" I noticed then that he was fraying and twisting a newspaper. I hadn't seen a newspaper for what seemed years. Stein came back and sat on the edge of the seat. What in blazes was the matter?
Smith said something unprintable. That didn't sound right, coming from that refined face. I raised my eyebrows.
"Leak," he ended succinctly. "There's been a leak. The word's out!"
That was a surprise. A big one.
"And it's thanks to you!"
"Me?"
–
He flipped the newspaper at me. I caught it in midair, and there it was, smeared all over the face of the Kansas City Sentinel. Great, black, tall shrieking streamer heads:
AMERICA HAS ATOMIC DEFENSE!
I scanned the two columns of stumbling enthusiastic prose that trailed over on to Page Two. Stein came over and leaned over my shoulder and breathed on my ear as we read. He hadn't seen the sheet, either. It ran something like this:
America, it was learned today, has at last an absolute defense, not only to the atomic bomb, but to every gun, every airplane, every engine, every weapon capable of being used by man. Neither admitted nor denied at this early date by even the highest government officials, it was learned by our staff late last night that America's latest step forward….
Column after column of stuff like that. When the reporter got through burbling, he did have a few facts that were accurate. He did say it was my doing that set off the last atomic bomb test; he did say that I was apparently invulnerable to violence powered by electrical or internal combustion engines; he did say what I could do, and what I had done, and how often. He didn't say who I was, or what I looked like, or where I'd come from, or what I did or didn't know.
Sprinkled through the story-and I followed it back to Page 32 and the pictures rehashed of the traffic jam in Detroit-were references to T. Sylvester Colquhoun, the boy who dumped the original plate of beans. He attested this and swore to that. Whoever he was, wherever he got his information, he-there was his picture on Page 32, big as life and twice as obnoxious; Mr. Whom and the van Dyke.
Guiltily I handed the paper over to Stein, who turned back to the front page and started again from the beginning. I tried to carry things off in the nonchalant manner, but I couldn't. I had to watch the Old Man light a cigarette with fumbling fingers, take a few snorting puffs, and crush it viciously under his heel. Miller and his temper.
–
Whom-or T. Sylvester Colquhoun-had, quite obviously, a grudge against the short left that had given him his concussion. According to the Sentinel, he had babbled a bit when he was released from the hospital, and an alert newshawk had trailed him to his home and bluffed him into spilling the whole story. He had sense enough, at that late stage of the game, to keep my name out of it, if he ever knew it. The reporter had gone to his editor with the story, who had laughed incredulously at first, and then checked Kellner at the laboratory. Kellner had clammed up, and when the now suspicious editor had tried to check Colquhoun's tale personally, Colquhoun had vanished. A snooping neighbor had noted the license of the car that had taken him away. The Highway Department-the editor must have moved fast and decisively-showed the license plate as issued to a man the editor knew personally as a special agent of the Kansas City Branch of the FBI.
–
Then hell began to pop. Repeated long-distance calls to Washington ran him up against a stone wall. The answers he got convinced him that there was something to Colquhoun's wild tale, something weird and yet something that had a germ of truth. (Half of this, understand, was in the Sentinel. The other half I picked up later on, adding two and two.) As he was sitting mulling things over it was his turn to get a call from Washington. The State Department was on the line; Morgan, the Under Secretary.
Morgan fairly yelled at him. "Where did you get that information? What's the idea?" and so on. That clinched it for the editor. Then it was he knew.
Morgan made his mistake there. He began to threaten, and the editor hit the ceiling. Hit it hard, because he stretched things a little. He stretched it more than just a little.
He said, "Furthermore, that's on the street right now-this is a newspaper, not a morgue!"
It wasn't on the street, the editor knew. Perhaps he wanted to throw a scare into Morgan, perhaps-But Morgan!
Morgan gasped, "Oh, my God!" and hung up with a bang.
–
The editor flipped a mental coin. His circulation was not what it should be, the boss had been riding him lately, his job might be where a beat would tilt the balance up or down. The national safety that Morgan had shouted about-well, if we had the perfect weapon and the perfect defense, what was there to fear? And this was a newspaper, not a morgue! They replated, and the first extras hit the street to wake up half the city. The wire services had the story and extras were rolling throughout the country, or the world, about the time I was watching the sun over Lake Ste. Clair.
Neither the State Department nor the FBI were on their toes that day. Instead of denying everything, or instead of laughing heartily at the pipedream of an editor trying to sell an extra edition or two, whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes demanded flatly that all wire services kill and disregard all references to Colquhoun. No one ever made a newspaperman do what he really didn't want to do. The very fact that the government was so eager to kill the story made every newsman worthy of his salt all the more eager to break the paper-thin shell around the meaty yolk. By noon, the time we landed for fuel, every Washington correspondent for every news service had a little different story for his boss, the White House was practically besieged at the mere rumor that the President was to issue a statement, and the State Department was going quietly mad.
"Not so quietly, at that," the Old Man said sourly. "One hour straight I stayed on that telephone. One hour straight I talked to one bunch of raving maniacs, and all the common sense I heard would go into your left eye."
By that time his temper had cooled below melting, and we were again on reasonably good terms. I was curious to know just who the Old Man had talked to.
He grunted. "Just about everyone in Washington with any authority at all. No one with any intelligence."
I could appreciate that. I have a very low opinion of anyone who stays in Washington any longer than necessary.
I asked him, "We're apparently heading back there. Why? Where were we going when they stopped us?"
He wasn't sure. "I wanted to keep on going," he said, "and get you out of the country. I still think that would have been best. There was to be a cruiser waiting at Bremerton for a shakedown cruise. But whoever is running all this-and I don't think that the President has thought too much about it-wants us to get back to Washington for another conference."
* * * * *
"Another meeting?" I was disgusted. Washington political rashes manifest themselves most often by the consistent eruption of conferences in which nothing is said, nothing decided, nothing done. "What does who think what?"
He blinked, and then smiled. "I couldn't say. I've been in this game only twenty years. At any rate, you can see who's worried."
I didn't see, exactly.
"No?" He was amused. "Don't you remember the discussion we had about who was going to watch the watchers? Now that there's been a leak, the Army
is going to blame the Navy, the Navy is going to blame the FBI, and I take punishment from all three." He sighed. "My department seems, invariably, to be in the middle."
I let it go at that. I didn't have the heart to remind him that a good portion of the trouble and friction this country has had in its history has been because the State Department has been sitting on the water bucket when it should have been playing deep centerfield. No use worrying about things until the fuse is burnt half its length, I thought. That might be, for me and all of us, a good policy to adopt, for the time being. Let the boys at the top fret and worry; let them wrack their brains and beat their heads against the wall. I'd do what they told me, if I could. The man that pays the salary worries about the unemployment tax.
"Stein," I said, "are there any more of those sandwiches?"
–
The Old Man settled back in his seat and began to read the Kansas City Sentinel all over again. He was still worried when we landed in Washington.
He left in a waiting black sedan, and Stein and I stayed in the ship until it was yanked into a dark hangar by a tiny tractor with great rubber tires. We slid out the back of the hangar when the wary Stein thought it was safe, and a taxi rolled us to the Mayflower. There we registered, I was told, as James Robertson and William Wakefield, Wisconsin Dells.
"Milwaukee," I suggested, "has better beer."
He took the hint, and when the waiter brought our late dinner, the ice bucket had eight frosty bottles. They practically sizzled when they went down. Bob Stein, at times, had some earmarks of genius, even if you had to lay them bare with an axe.
–
The first day wasn't bad; we sat around, drank beer and ate huge thick sirloins on the swindle sheet, and told all the stories we knew. The radio was blurting either soap operas, hill-billy music, or lentil-mouthed commentators. The story broken in the Sentinel was gathering momentum, by what we read and heard, and that was too close to home. So we made a pact to turn off the radio and keep it that way. We never missed it.
The second day the beer tasted as good as ever. The steaks were just as thick and just as tender, the hotel service just as unobtrusive. Stein was just as cheerful and as pleasant company. But I spent a lot of time looking out the window.
"You know, Bob," I said thoughtfully, "how would you like a big plate of spaghetti? Or ravioli? Maybe some pizza?"
He came out of the bathroom wiping his face with a towel, his hair wet and frizzled.
[Illustration]
"Am I going to have trouble with you?" He was pessimistic. "Aren't you ever satisfied?"
I turned away from the window and let the curtain flap in the breeze. "Who wants to be satisfied? How about some sub-gum war mein, or chicken cacciatora?"
He tossed the towel back through the open door. "Now, look here," he protested.
I laughed at him. "Okay, but you get the point."
He did, but he didn't know what he could do about it. "We were supposed to wait here until-"
That one I'd heard before. "Until the hotel freezes over, sure. But I don't want to freeze. Do you?"
No, nor to rust. You could see that he liked his job of body-guard and factotum, and yet….
I pushed him over the edge. "Tell you what to do," I said. "You call up and say that I'm getting restless. Say that you're afraid I'll ease out of here when your back is turned. Say anything you like, as long as you lay it on thick, and I'll back you up. Okay?"
He weighed it awhile. He liked inaction, no matter how sybaritic as much as I. Then, "Okay," and he reached for the telephone.
The number he gave answered the first ring.
"I'm calling for Mr. Robertson," he said. "This is Mr. William Wakefield. W. W. Wakefield." He paused. Then, "Ordinarily, I wouldn't, but Mr. Robertson felt that I should get in touch with you at once."
The other end squawked, nervously, I thought.
Stein thought so, too. "That's quite possible. However, Mr. Robertson feels that his time here in Washington is valuable. So valuable that he thinks that his business is soon going to call him back to Wisconsin Dells, if the merger referred to is delayed any longer. I beg your pardon?"
* * * * *
He twisted to throw me a wink over his shoulder as the telephone chattered frantically.
"That's exactly what I told Mr. Robertson…. Yes, he knows of that…. Yes, I have assured him that, in these days of business uncertainty and production difficulties, mergers are not as easily arranged as-" That Stein had a sense of humor when he wanted to use it.
"Is that right? I'm glad to hear it. One moment, while I check with Mr. Robertson." He held his hand over the mouthpiece and grinned at me. "They are ready to have a stroke. This man I'm talking to has no more authority than a jackrabbit, and he knows it. He wants to check with his boss, and call us back later. All right with you, Mr. Robertson?"
I laughed out loud, and he clamped the mouthpiece tighter. "I think so, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. As long as he puts the heat on that merger."
He went back on the telephone. "Mr. Robertson thinks he might be able to wait a trifle longer. He asked me to warn you, that as he is a very busy man, every minute of his time can cost a considerable amount of money and goods…. Yes, I'll tell him that…. I'll be waiting for your call…. Yes, I will. Thank you, and good-bye." He hung up the telephone with a flourish.
"Satisfied, Mr. Robertson?"
I was satisfied. "Quite, Mr. W. W. Wakefield. Wouldst care for ein bier?"
Ein bier haben. He would.
The telephone rang about an hour later, and I answered it. It was the Old Man's voice.
"Mr. Robertson?" he said cautiously.
"Mr. Robertson speaking," I said. "Yes?"
"I'm calling," he told me in a voice that said he was annoyed, but didn't want to show it, "in reference to the Wisconsin Dells merger."
"Yes?" I gave him no help.
"You understand, Mr. Robertson, that such an important merger can hardly be arranged at a moment's notice."
Yes, I understood that. "But two days notice is more than sufficient, even allowing for an enormous amount of red tape." I put real regret into my voice. "It is not that I wouldn't like to let nature take its course, but other things must be taken into consideration." I hoped I sounded like the busy executive. "I believe that Mr. Wakefield, Mr. W. W. Wakefield, has explained that I am a very busy man, and that I can hardly be expected to wait indefinitely in even such a pleasant atmosphere."
The Old Man forced a cheery-and false-heartiness. "There are, or there might be, Mr. Robertson, other things that might induce you to stay. Many other things."
Threaten me, would he? "That, I doubt very much. I'm afraid I must insist-it's now two-twenty. If a merger, or at least a meeting cannot be arranged by tomorrow at the very latest, the reason for having a meeting will, for all practical purposes, have ceased to exist. Do I make myself clear?"
I certainly did. With a short-tempered bang, Smith hung up, after saying that he would call back later. I relayed the conversation to Bob Stein, and we sent down for lunch.
The Old Man called back about seven, when I was washing up, and Bob answered the telephone. By the time I came out he had all the information we needed, and was calling room service to clear the dishes.
"Meeting tonight," he said when he was finished. He was pleased with himself.
"Good." It was getting a little tiresome being cramped up. "When? Where?"
He shrugged. "Where? I couldn't say. Someone will call for us, somewhere between nine and ten. And," he added slowly, "it might be a good idea to wear the best bib and tucker, with Sunday School manners."
"Oh?" I said, "that kind of a party? Fine. I'm all ready now. Better get your hat."
At ten-thirty, the telephone rang. I answered it.
"This is the desk," it said. "Mr. Wakefield?"
"He's here," I said. "Wait a minute," and I passed the phone to Stein.
"Wakefield," he said. "Yes?"
The receiver chatt
ered briefly.
"All right," and he waved at me. "Be right down." He turned. "Car waiting." It didn't take us long to get downstairs.
It was a sedan with a neat little drive-yourself tab on the right-hand door. Before we got near the car, Stein was careful to see who was the driver. He evidently was someone he knew, so Bob nodded curtly, and we got in and pulled away from the curb.
* * * * *
I don't know Washington at all, so I can't say where we made port. Not too far a drive, I imagine, if we had gone there directly. It was a good forty-five minutes before we ended our erratic turning of corners and sped up a long tree-bordered driveway.
"Nice place," I said to Stein as we braked to a stop in front of a long white-columned Southern portico. "Who lives here?"
He smiled and shook his head. "That's something I don't know. Does it matter?"
It didn't.
As we strode up the steps the Drive-Yourself pulled away, tires crackling on the white gravel. We both reached for the knocker at the same time, but before we had it, the door swung open. Stein recognized the young fellow who opened it and took our hats. A message passed between their eyes, and the young man almost imperceptibly shook his head in negation.
"Will you come this way, please?" and he led us down the hall.
The house was smaller than the outside had led me to expect. The builder had gone whole hog on the giant Greek columns and the wide sweep of the porch, and the inside of the house showed the results of the skimping. Not that it wasn't a far bigger and a far more expensive house than any average man would hope to have, but the limited space inside didn't go with those sweeping curves of the drive. I wondered who lived there.
The room where the doorman left us went with the inside of the house. So small it reminded me of the times when I tried to sell brushes during the depression, in Grosse Pointe, I expected every moment to have an underpaid maid, laundress, and butler come in to tell me that the lady of the house was out. In keeping with the faded appointments of the tiny room, a Chinese table held, for those who wait and read, an ancient collection of "Spur" and "Town and Country." As we sat and smoked, far off through the thin walls we could hear the soft rumble of voices. Occasionally a bass would rise above the sound, and a baritone would slide softly and soothingly across the pained roar. The front door opened and closed twice during the fifteen minutes or so we waited, and the footsteps that came in went past our room and pattered further down the hall. Each time, when the steps were out of reach of hearing, another door would open, and the distant voices would become almost distinguishable until the door again was shut. I looked curiously around the walls. Decorated with prints and pictures they were, yes, but with that faded permanency that to me spells the furnished house. The rugs were worn, worn to the shredding point, worn until the spurious Oriental design seemed an eerie Dali drawing. All it needed was the faroff smell of secondhand ham and cabbage.
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